Anyone got an electron microscope?

If the games are produced the same way for the ps3 as the ps2 was they don't burn them as they are stamped by a glass press which cost over $10,000 i believe and to get a hold of one of those machines could be quite a feat in itself, so getting a blu-ray burner that burns would not put you any further ahead.

Unless i am wrong on this i apologize then but i believe this is how the ps3 games are also made.

I always believed that it was some sort of lazer stamping system that they used to make disks, just seems like it would be a cheaper and safer way to transcribe disks than a press system, but one would still cost in the $5,000-$6,000 price range... still more likely to be in someones trash than a full blown electron microscope...

It's a protection against re-pressing, not against emulating! But of course, the emulation would require heavy computing resource, but it's not impossible. I'm talking about raw physical emulation: feed the laser-sensors with the appropriate signals.

The downside is that the whole thing will be in vain if at least the retail-to-debug conversion succeed. And this is a lot of trouble for so little goal.

It's a protection against re-pressing, not against emulating! But of course, the emulation would require heavy computing resource, but it's not impossible. I'm talking about raw physical emulation: feed the laser-sensors with the appropriate signals.

The downside is that the whole thing will be in vain if at least the retail-to-debug conversion succeed. And this is a lot of trouble for so little goal.

Aren't there such things as programmable electron microscopes? You could get the data needed for pressing through automaton. I know this is far beyond practical for distribution, but it's still interesting. I'm actually surprised some asian manufacturer isn't doing knockoffs if this is doable.. so much profit.

So we talk about pirate-pressings? If so, then the problem is the huge amount of overhead and the precision required for repressing. Due to the fact that from mater-disc to pressing negative the transition done by chemical reactions make the production cost relative low compared to highly sophisticated equipment needs to replicate the images read by the microscope. Just think about how complex the entire disc-reading mechanism is and to be as accurate as the original you need resolution higher than the original by multiple times.

(in compare: with nuclear accelerators you can make gold from lead, but the costs so huge that it makes no sense.. in terms of gold-making)

So we talk about pirate-pressings? If so, then the problem is the huge amount of overhead and the precision required for repressing. Due to the fact that from mater-disc to pressing negative the transition done by chemical reactions make the production cost relative low compared to highly sophisticated equipment needs to replicate the images read by the microscope. Just think about how complex the entire disc-reading mechanism is and to be as accurate as the original you need resolution higher than the original by multiple times.

(in compare: with nuclear accelerators you can make gold from lead, but the costs so huge that it makes no sense.. in terms of gold-making)

Yeah I understand what you're saying. I was just thinking you know how manufacturers in Asia do ipad and iphone and a lot of other knockoffs, and some look at operate identical, the manufacturer just has suppliers and refined manufacturing based around cheaper materials and parts.

They seem to be efficient and competent when it comes to reverse engineering and manufacturing. I could almost see them engineering some form of cheaper automatism to do this and putting it out on global markets even with the R&D required.

"Pirates" for the most part work off the ideas of others. For example: if you go to China Town to buy Iron Man 2, you aren't getting their work but rather another's telesync they simply downloaded from torrents. Same with software. Hardware is a bit of a different story.

Anyways, the reason companies use presses to make data discs is because of how amazingly cheap it is on an industrial scale, those machines press fast and can produce the millions of game copies necessary. There is no doubt it is possible to get a raw dump from a BD drive and then a raw burn. It is a matter of writing the driver to not attempt interpretation and rather read just etches, or its binary translation. Then, make it etch that exact data back.

Now, as to why it hasn't been done for the ps3: I'm fairly confident it has, it just isn't public. Surely there are people out there just like me, but with more money. If I am correct in this assumption, it has already been done.

So, I have dealt with a lot of electronics, and I've dealt with lasers. But, never have I dealt with optical data (the nuts and bolts). I COULD do it, but it would take a long time, because I have a lot to learn, and that wouldn't be the smart way to do it. However, I proposed this idea to, perhaps, give someone else with this specific expertise the opportunity to do it. I could write a program to search for the boot sectors in the disc, but so could anyone else. So once again I'm not much practical help.

As far as the driver experts mentioned above, I tried to join to contact them and couldn't. I will try again some other time. I currently have a pretty hefty RF project I'm working on, so...